


Here in Your Perfect Eyes

by TheOceanIsMyInkwell



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Jewish Merlin, M/M, Modern Era, PTSD, War Veteran Arthur Pendragon, it's very slight really, merlin runs a psychic shop, sappy declarations of love, the sass in this i swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:48:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24449851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOceanIsMyInkwell/pseuds/TheOceanIsMyInkwell
Summary: “You’re a part-time sports columnist, and a full-time prat,” Merlin decides, turning to face Arthur with his palm on the counter. “Why aren’t you wearing a shirt?”The blond man arches a brow challengingly at him. “Is that a complaint I hear?”“No,” says Merlin with emphasis, “Nota complaint. I do...enjoy...tasteful nudity here and there. But you’re dripping nasty water marks all over the floor and Ijustpolished the hardwood.”Understanding dawns on Arthur’s face. He pulls an expression of exaggerated sympathy. “Oh! Oh, dear. I’m sure your knees must be hurting.”“Flaming like the day of penance,” Merlin says without missing a beat.“How insensitive of me! And your back…”“Bent, probably. Popped a rib or two.”“Not to mention your poor, knobby hands.”Merlin holds them up, all pale and smooth and knobby-looking, indeed. “Scrubbed raw, like the devil himself peeled all the skin off to cover his ass.”--Or: Arthur works up the courage one afternoon to tell Merlin he's finally going to therapy.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 34
Kudos: 195





	Here in Your Perfect Eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fencer11](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fencer11/gifts).



> This one goes out to @fencer11 for her belated birthday!! Thank you for being such an amazing, supportive, kind, and beautiful friend, Clara. You deserve the world every day and especially on your birthday, and I hope this little Merthur piece puts a smile on your face :)
> 
> Prompt #16 from [this "I love you" drabble challenge](https://theoceanismyinkwell.tumblr.com/post/611493370134675456/the-way-you-said-i-love-you): "Over and over again, till it's nothing but a senseless babble."
> 
> Theme song and title inspiration: ["Chasing Cars" by Sleeping at Last](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2URIAPegF4)

Merlin is puttering around the kitchen when Arthur rounds the corner, mussing up his hair with the smaller bath towel, and pauses with a shoulder leaned against the lintel. Merlin is always moving--never still, not even a second when he’s sitting down, not unless he’s concentrating extraordinarily hard at appearing unfazed by Morgana’s usual Friday night dinner jabs or steeling his jaw at the newest insensitive thing that Uther is saying over the Bluetooth speaker in the car. Truthfully, Arthur is thankful himself that Uther doesn’t own a Twitter account.

“Making dinner for a battalion of garden gnomes, are we?” Arthur teases him from the doorway.

Merlin’s head jerks in his direction, eyes wide and caught off guard, in the middle of prodding another pile of japchae into one of the dozen or so little wooden bowls arranged across the counter. Merlin licks the excess sauce off his finger and rolls up the baggy sleeve of his sweater over his elbow. Predictably, it slips back down again over his skinny forearm when he shrugs.

“This is how it’s done in Korea,” he says with a purse of his lips, “and you would know that if you used the internet for anything other than fighting with people on Twitter and yelling over football matches.”

“I write a sports column,” Arthur deadpans. “Yelling over football is actually kind of my job.”

“You’re a part-time sports columnist, and a full-time prat,” Merlin decides, turning to face Arthur with his palm on the counter. “Why aren’t you wearing a shirt?”

The blond man arches a brow challengingly at him. “Is that a complaint I hear?”

“No,” says Merlin with emphasis, “ _Not_ a complaint. I do...enjoy...tasteful nudity here and there. But you’re dripping nasty water marks all over the floor and I _just_ polished the hardwood.”

Understanding dawns on Arthur’s face. He pulls an expression of exaggerated sympathy. “Oh! Oh, dear. I’m sure your knees must be hurting.”

“Flaming like the day of penance,” Merlin says without missing a beat.

“How insensitive of me! And your back…”

“Bent, probably. Popped a rib or two.”

“Not to mention your poor, knobby hands.”

Merlin holds them up, all pale and smooth and knobby-looking, indeed. “Scrubbed raw, like the devil himself peeled all the skin off to cover his ass.”

“Truly you make noble sacrifices for this household,” Arthur scoffs, knowing full well Merlin used magic to get the brushes and brooms and sink water going this morning. “I’m a lout. I should--go put on my shirt now.”

“Hm. You should,” Merlin agrees, his enthusiasm matching that of one being led to the gallows.

“After all”--Arthur grunts as he ducks into the bedroom to grab the sweater he prepared on the edge of the bedspread, and twists his torso into it in that ridiculous series of contortions Merlin derides him for--“er, after all, I will be needing to look decent today. I’m going out for a bit.”

When Arthur pops back into the kitchen and jogs over to help Merlin distribute the ridiculous number of little appetizer bowls onto a tray, Merlin is training his gaze him with thinly veiled interest. “Out? With--Lance and the guys?”

A quiet peak of inquisitiveness, when both of them know very well that Arthur would never exclude Merlin from an outing with their squad. No. Merlin knows it’s private--and important--and the little thing he does with the cock of his head and shift of his jaw tells Arthur so.

“No,” Arthur sighs. He sets the tray down on the dinette and stands, hands on the back of the chair, his own back to Merlin. He stares at the wall ahead of him for a moment. Studies the same lines of Merlin’s artwork framed there, the flowing sketch of Arthur’s profile, with Merlin’s signature and the tiny Hebrew letters of the phrase _You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created_. A loaded reference, one that they used to jest about but now only poke at somberly ever since Arthur came back from tour abroad.

“You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to,” Merlin says softly from behind him.

Somehow, Arthur has the feeling Merlin has his back to him, too. There’s a clink: the chopsticks being laid down across the edge of the stove where it meets the counter.

“It’s all right,” Arthur says, sounding frighteningly normal. “I’m--going to therapy.”

There’s a tiny silence. Too small, small enough for Arthur to have imagined it, because he does imagine some things, after all. And then a noisy rustle as Merlin shifts, and the slap of his slippered feet as he comes near and wraps an arm around the upper portion of Arthur’s chest. Arthur thinks he just might be strangled, with how much Merlin is trembling behind him, with little awareness of the strength of his own arm, but he doesn’t care. He lifts his right hand to latch onto Merlin’s forearm and thumbs the quivering skin there.

“I can come with, if you need me to,” Merlin says. His voice rumbles against Arthur’s back.

Arthur hears the cautious neutrality in his boyfriend’s voice. The secret yearning to be there for him, but the understanding all the same that this is an experience he needs to have on his own, no matter how much either of them might want to be around each other at all hours of the day now. Now, after--well. After.

Arthur pauses before he speaks. Catalogues every press of Merlin’s scratchy canvas apron against the wool on his back, and the sharp angle of his hips and knee against Arthur’s.

“Maybe the second or third time,” is what he says. “I gotta--see if I like him first, y’know. ’Cause. Not everybody clicks with their counselor right off the bat.”

“Right,” says Merlin, resident expert in all kinds of therapists since his university days. “Of course. I knew that.” And just as he draws a breath to tack on the predictable, “I’m dumb,” Arthur speaks over him with firmness: “You’re not dumb.”

“Fine,” says Merlin, only sounding half-convinced, but Arthur knows he concedes the point as a kind of boon to him on this special day. A kind of...pre-therapy celebration gift, for Arthur opening up about all the smoke and panic trapped in his brain. Yay.

“You know who’s dumb?” says Merlin.

Arthur turns around in his boyfriend’s arms. “Morgana?”

“Shush. She’ll hex you for that tomorrow if she finds out about your slanderous tongue.”

“She’ll only find out about it if you tell her. Snitch.”

Merlin smiles at him beatifically. Adorable crooked teeth and all.

“ _Snitch_ ,” Arthur reiterates, with far too much fondness. “So. Who’s dumb?”

“Uther.”

“Oh,” says Arthur with no small measure of sourness. “Are you quite done with the stale news yet?”

“Hush up. I’m trying to be angry and supportive. I’m skinny as a matchstick and it’s all I’ve got, don’t take this away from me.”

Arthur snorts. Inelegantly so. “All right, then, why’s he dumb this time?”

“Because he doesn’t see how brave you are,” Merlin replies without the slightest pause. The switch of tone should give Arthur whiplash, but by now he’s accustomed to it. That’s the thing of beauty between them: soulmates, practically, able to sense one another’s moods and thought patterns and change from teasing to somber to wistful and straight back in one breath.

“I quite doubt I’m brave myself,” Arthur mumbles.

“But you are. Today is--well. You’ve been brave every day I’ve known you, believe it or not, and no, I will not take that back even when you tickle me tomorrow at four in the morning. I mean it. But today of all days, I think you’re… _really_ brave.”

“Really brave,” Arthur repeats. “Really brave?”

“Enjoy my adoration while it lasts,” Merlin retorts, half-teasing, half-solemn. His hushed tone is matched to Arthur’s.

Arthur leans back against the edge of the table and twines his arms around the small of Merlin’s back. “I swear, you may have the biggest magic in all of England, and yet you’re blind to all my flaws.”

“Oh, I’m not. I’m quite aware of them.”

“Oh, you are, are you?”

“I catalogue them every night in my dark and sinister grimoire,” says Merlin with a nod. “One of these days, when you use up my shampoo again without replacing it, it’ll be the last straw and Morgana and I will be teaming up to hex your ass.”

“The two of you are just jealous of my luscious locks.”

Merlin pulls back slightly with a dramatic scoff. “Really.”

“Uh-huh. Really.” Arthur’s full-on grinning now.

“And to think, I was _this_ close to telling you I love you.”

“Aha! You’ve done it already.”

“No, I haven’t. This isn’t some--transfer principle.”

“Well, then, say it.”

“And why on earth would I do that?”

_Because your eyes sparkle and your mouth melts a little when you say it. Because a flush rises in your face when you say it. Because I want to reach out and bury my hands in your hair and pull you in for a kiss when you say it._

_Because I love you too, so much, it hurts my ribs sometimes and I can’t breathe, but in the best way possible because I never truly knew how to breathe before_.

“Say it, and I’m never touching your shampoo again.”

Merlin’s blue eyes flick up for the briefest of moments to the top of Arthur’s golden head. He seems to be having second thoughts. “Try again,” he says.

“Say it because...if you do, I’m taking you with me to therapy next time.”

Merlin snorts, hard. First once, then twice. “Strange bartering terms.”

“Oh, fuck off, I have _PTSD_.”

“I hate you.”

“I love you,” Arthur says back with as much ironic venom as he can inject into his voice. “I love you. I love you.”

“Sop.”

“I love you,” Arthur continues to singsong, chasing Merlin’s cheek for a kiss as the other man bats his face away. Arthur moves his arms from Merlin’s back up to around his shoulders, then higher up still so his hands can cup the edge of Merlin’s jaw, and his boyfriend finally stills in his grasp. They’re both already out of breath, which is shameful, really, considering they only had a three-second tousle against the kitchen table and barely made it to another room in the flat.

For once, Merlin seems caught off-guard. Perhaps it is because Arthur rarely shows him these moments of unveiled vulnerability. These flashes of the truth about himself. Not that Merlin ever needed any help in getting to know him, but Arthur has always kept his soul close to himself.

Tongue-tied, Merlin stares at him, eye to eye. Arthur runs the pad of his thumb over the shell of Merlin’s ear.

“I love you,” Arthur whispers again. Freely, this time, no strings attached.

And then again, and again, and then again and again and again, over and over in a murmur, planting kisses on every inch of Merlin’s face, till he’s uttering it under his breath like a senseless babble.

Merlin tips his head a bit and captures Arthur’s lips with his. Warm, safe, just on the edge of adventure yet also on the threshold of home.

“I love you too,” he says back. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

Arthur hums against his mouth. They pull back just a centimeter to breathe, puffs of air intermingling between them. “You seeing anyone today?”

“Three girls this afternoon.”

“Try not to read their futures too accurately.”

“Please,” Merlin chuckles. “I could give them the most insightful look into the future and they’d still read into my own reading.”

“Well, save a pile of cards for me, then.”

“Like you’re any better,” Merlin grins.

“And why would I need to care about what my future holds,” Arthur says, “if I know I’ve already got you in it?”

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first Merthur fic, actually. I've been in the fandom for almost two years now, and I've read and bookmarked so many of my favorite works on ao3, but I've been writing primarily for iron dad and spider son and never got around to actually typing up some of my pet ideas for a modern Merthur au. Then @fencer11 sent me some prompts to get me started, and this was the first one!!
> 
> I'm super open to prompt requests and I do my best to fill as many as I can as they come in! So feel free to send me a prompt from [this drabble challenge](https://theoceanismyinkwell.tumblr.com/post/615778999753441280/prompt-list-firsts-in-found-familyfriendships) for these fandoms/ships: Merthur, Queliot (Quentin/Eliot from The Magicians), Elu (Eliott/Lucas from SKAM France), or iron dad and spider son :)
> 
> Please do let me know what you think! I'm super curious to know what you think about characterization, if you have suggestions or ideas for this au, what else you wanna see if I make these a loose series of oneshots, etc. Thanks for reading and I adore y'all! <3 -kaleb
> 
> muh tumblr: theoceanismyinkwell  
> muh insta: kc.barrie
> 
> [pinterest moodboard for this verse](https://www.pinterest.com/kcbarrie/writing-moodboards/merthur-the-witch-and-the-warrior/)


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